Mixed Economy: an economic system containing aspects of both capitalism and socialism
Socialism: An economic system that vests the ownership, capital and means of production into the community as a whole.

I am not advocating complete socialism. What the thesis is proposing is that the people of the United States would be more successful as a group if our mixed economy moved from more capitalistic to more socialist.

Even though this is a three round debate, I will allow my opponent to make his opening statement. I then propose that the bulk of our arguments be presented in round two and our conclusions and final arguments be presented in round three.
I look forward to a stimulating and informative debate.

The less a government regulates an economy, the more that economy thrives. That is because more regulation increasingly stifles competition. The more competition is stifled, the less incentive people have to work hard. With less incentive to work hard, productivity begins to suffer, and the economy grows more stagnate.
Here is a list of the countries that rank in the top ten of economic freedom. These countries have the most successful economies in the world.
1. Hong Kong
2. Singapore
3. Australia
4. Ireland
5. New Zealand
6. United States
7. Canada
8. Denmark
9. Switzerland
10. United Kingdomhttp://en.wikipedia.org...

I think that most of us among us can agree that a mixed economy is by far the most beneficial to a society. Complete socialism and complete capitalism can both be very destructive. Therefore, the question that must be addressed in this debate is whether our mixed economy should lean more towards capitalism or more towards socialism.

Socialism has a large stigma to it. This is because that many countries that have implimented this system have been dictatorships. They perverted the meaning of the word by using it to describe their system of government, when in fact their system of government was simply totalitarianism.

In this country, one in eight people go hungry each day. Over half these people are children. There is no reason for this. With the massive amount of wealth that exists in this country there is no reason that some should go hungry while others have so much wealth.
Now I'm no bleeding heart. There are plenty of people that are homeless and hungry because they are drug addicts or it is a lifestyle that they choose. Those people don't deserve our help or pity. They made their own problems and they have no one to blame but themselves. There are, however, many people that have lost their jobs and have no family to turn to for help. These people are victims of capitialism.
Capitalism makes the focus of economy money. All a compnay cares about is making profits. They don't care about the good of the country, they don't care about the people of the country. They care only for their shareholders. This is wonderful if you are a shareholder in their company. Unless of course, that company was Enroe, Tyco, AIG, etc...who worked in creative accounting practices to make their company look profitable when it really wasn't. Why did they do this? Because their company wasn't focused on morality or honesty, they were focused on money.
Companies like Nike, Ford, Kellogg, Coca-Cola, Boeing, etc...moves jobs to overseas where they can pay workers pennies an hour and thus increase profits. This leads to more unemployment, less consumer spending and economic downturns. Do the companies care about these consequences of their actions? No, because all they care about is their own profit margins.

Capitalism creates a system that rewards some and punishes others. Sometimes it rewards hard work, but not often enough for it to make sense. If only the hardworking were rewarded, then capitalism would make the most sense. However, too often people are rewarded for who they know and where they were born. Those with connections from birth are allowed to go to the best schools and thus get the best jobs.
This caste system is one of the worst features of capitalism. It rewards birth right and not hard work.

My opponent claims that socialism stifles competiton and creates less incentives for hard work. It may be true that pure socialism does this, but we are talking about a mixed economy. Also, I reject the notion that people are only spurred to work hard in capitalism. Workers work hard because they know that if they don't they may be fired. Also, hard work is in large part a reflection of the way someone was raised.

Capitalism also leads to the desruction of natural resources because it must always grow and always consume more and more goods to be productive.

We have seen the end result of a totally free market economy with little to no regulation. The economy has collapsed and it will take years for us to overcome what certain corporations have done to the economy. Socialism is a more stable economic form. There are fewer upswings, but there are also fewer downswings.

Here is a list of countries that have the most people making below the median income
1.Mexico
2.Russia
3.The United States
4.Austrialia
5.Italy
6.Australia
Notice that these are all capitalistic countries. The average median incomes are higher in a lot of capitalistic countries than they are in more socialistic countries. However, if you discounted the earnings of the top one percent (in the United States this would include all people making over two million dollars per yer) then the median income drops to below the median incomes of: Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Norway.
In a capitalistic country there are the haves and have-nots. Some people make a massive amount of money, a large number are poor and there are a few in the middle.

The pharse "the working poor" is very disturbing. Wny should there be people that have two or more jobs and are still considered poor? This is disgusting in this country. The American dream does not exist for everyone and that is the problem. Capitalism is a way for rich white men to keep the money in their own families.

That's not freedom, that's not fair.

What I propose, is that ownership of businesses remain vested in the private sector. I believe that free and fair compettion should exist. However, I believe that corporations should not allow to employ foreign labor. I believe that corporations should not be allowed to operate offshores and thus skip out on U.S. taxes. I believe that corporations should be firmly regulated and I think there should be some limits put on earnings.

If companies don't like it, let them leave. This country will not allow their productrs to be sold here. Faced with that large of a loss of customers one of two things will happen. Either the companies will fold and agree to the regulations or some one will step up and create a company to fill the needs of our people following the regulations.